“I ought now to tell you something about my platoon.  To give you the names of my non-commissioned officers is surely not giving away any information which would be of use to the enemy!  So I do not see why I should not do so.

“As I may already have told you I am in command of No. 7 platoon.  My platoon sergeant (second-in-command) is Sergeant Williams. (He was a waiter in Parker’s Restaurant in St. Ann’s Square, Manchester, in pre-war days).  A platoon consists of four sections, each of which is commanded by a corporal.  My sections are as follows:  Rifle Section commanded by Lance-Corporal Tipping; Bombing Section commanded by Lance-Corporal Livesey; Lewis Gun Section commanded by Lance-Corporal Topping; and Rifle Grenade Section commanded by Corporal Baldwin.  You will notice that a Lewis Gun Section is part of every platoon; I think that is sufficient answer to your question whether the fact of my attending lectures on the Lewis Gun meant that I should go into a Lewis Gun Section.

“There has not been much to do to-day; nor has anything very notable happened during the day up to now.  It is now 6.40 p.m.  So I will close.”

“June 10th.

“Last night the whole Battalion went out on working parties; so I had command of a party.  My party was detailed to repair the parapet of a communication trench just behind our front line.  I set off with Sergeant Williams and a party of fourteen men of my platoon at 9.40, just as it was getting dark.  We were soon in the open fields and so could see all around us the ruined buildings of the great city.  Three shells fell across the path we had traversed, after we had passed the points.  Fritz was just a little too late on each occasion!  We went on in the dusk, amidst the flashes of booming guns and exploding shells and flares lighting up the weird ruins and ghostly country, as far as a dump (Potidje) where the remainder of the Battalion appeared to be congregated.  It occurred to me what a number would have been knocked out if a shell had burst just by this dump just then!  Fortunately no such thing happened.  Tools were drawn here; then we proceeded on our way by platoons.  The whole region was swarming with little wooden crosses where lie the thousands who have fallen on this oft-fought, long-fought, ever contending, battlefield.  We threaded our way along a winding communication trench (Pagoda Trench).  We passed a party in the trench with bayonets fixed—­a party of one officer, Lieutenant Alexander, and thirty men of the 1/4th King’s Own—­waiting to go over the top for a bombing raid on a section of the enemy front line.  ‘Good-byee!’ they laughed as we passed them.  Eventually we reached the point at which we were to commence work.  Flares were going up the whole time; the enemy must have seen us:  the whole crowd of us all in the open by the side of the trench which was to be repaired!  When a flare goes up the whole place is as light as day for a few seconds; and they were going up all round the Salient—­what remains of it, one side disappeared on Thursday morning!  Now and then a machine-gun would rattle a few rounds, and we would all duck down; but none of them were ranged on our party.